IOR/L/PS/12/1996

The file contains correspondence regarding the development of civil and military aviation in Siam [Thailand]. This includes intelligence on purchases of aircraft and weaponry from the United States for the Siamese Air Force (Siamese Royal Air Force from 1937); the file also contains a limited amount of correspondence surrounding proposals to supply Siam with British aircraft. The correspondence also documents a visit by HMS Hermes to Bangkok in 1929, and a visit by Siamese pilots to India in January 1930. The documentation for the latter visit also includes a report on the forced landing of one of the planes, and the fatality of Lieutenant Colonel Luang Neramitr Baijayont. The correspondence is almost entirely from either HM Minister or HM Chargé d'affairs at Bangkok and addressed to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. This correspondence is then forwarded by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the Under-Secretary of State for India; very little correspondence in the file is directly addressed to the India Office.

The file also contains details of aerodrome, landing grounds, and aircraft radio stations in Siam, compiled 12 July 1937 by the British Legation in Bagkok: see folios 21-38. Extracts from a number of local publications, and a limited amount of correspondence with representatives of the Siamese Foreign Ministery, have been included as enclosures to the correspondence.

The file includes a divider which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.